Well...it's nice to think my senile, highly-selective memory may come in handy for somebody once in a while.
There were several lines of sailing ship kits back in the fifties that match dood_dood's description. Among the very first products issued under the Revell label were those in the "Shipyard Series." They were, in fact, originally issued by a firm called Gowland Creations, of Santa Barbara, California, in the fall of 1952. Gowland also was the originator of the famous "Highway Pioneers" series of antique car kits. (Here I'm not relying on memory, but on the splendid book
Remembering Revell Model Kits, by Thomas Graham.) They came in two versions: with and without a plastic "bottle" (molded in two pieces). In 1954 Revell took over distribution of the kits and issued a few of them under its label. They also reappeared during the next twenty years under the "Mantle Models" and "Addar" labels. The subjects were the
Santa Maria, Golden Hind, Mayflower, Bonhomme Richard, Constitution, Savannah, and the revenue cutter
Joseph Lane. They were waterline models, each with a plastic "sea" base. The "sails" were thick, injection-molded plastic, and the "shrouds and ratlines," ingeniously, were printed on sheets of clear plastic.
Shortly thereafter Airfix released a series of similarly sized sailing ships. I don't have a published list of them in front of me, but I think I remember, H.M.S.
Victory, H.M.S.
Shannon, the
Cutty Sark, the
Great Western, the
Santa Maria, and the
Mayflower. (Whether the latter two were the same as the Gowland kits I have no idea.) These little kits shared many of the attributes of their American counterparts: "sea" bases, injection-molded "sails," and clear plastic "rigging." I have a vague recollection that a few of them, at least, appeared in full-hull form as well. Some of them, I believe, are still in the Airfix catalog and probably readily available in Britain, though I don't recall seeing them in the U.S. recently.
Then there was the range made by Pyro. These were a little bigger - seven or eight inches long - but to my recollection the price matches dood_dood's description: fifty cents. I think the Pyro kits came out over a fairly long period. The earliest ones - the
Santa Maria and
Mayflower, I think - were pretty crude, with wood dowels for masts and paper sails. Later ones included the
Golden Hind, Fair American, Bonhomme Richard, a Roman merchant ship, and a couple of others whose identities escape me. As scale models they were pretty disastrous, with thick plastic "sails" and wildly distorted hull proportions. They were, however, as my mother described my grade-school efforts to build them, "cute." I haven't seen any of them for many years, except on e-bay.
Another, smaller line came from Ideal Toy Corporation, otherwise known as ITC. I have only a faint memory of them, but I think their
Constitution has the distinction of being the smalles of the many kits that have represented that vessel over the decades. (It was also, to a ten-year-old, an insurmountable challenge. The fiends molded it in black plastic, with instructions to paint the sails white. Given the limits of Testor's glossy enamels and ten-cent brushes, the results were pretty depressing.) They also did a Viking ship and a Chinese junk, and probably one or two others that I've forgotten. These kits were quite tiny - about three inches long, if memory serves. In at least one incarnation they appeared in boxes of two each, for about a dollar. I believe Glencoe reissued at least one pair, the Viking ship and the Chinese junk, fairly recently; I think I saw it in a local hobby shop not long ago.
Those are the ones I remember. The Airfix and ITC/Glencoe kits probably would be relatively easy to get nowadays. For the others, I can only suggest swap meets, flea markets, and e-bay.
Hope this helps a little. Maybe some other forum members have better memories.